Re: Business Business Business!!

Mike I agree with you about the D&RGW NG lasting until 1979, and that the main freight business ended in 1968. The "Business" as you call it was there until 1979, but it was not the business that the railroad was built for originally. Passenger train travel started to move people who needed to get to a destination as in most cases it was the fastest, and perhaps cheapest way to get there, if not the only way in the early days.
Not until tourist discovered the scenery of the Animas river did the Silverton train become a destination. Not because it was a needed destination to reach Silverton for all the locals, but for the TOURISTS.
As John Craft pointed out below(thanks for beating me to the Post Office scenario! " />, passenger trains could not make it on regular passenger business, as regular passengers found other better means of travel, and thus relied on the Post Office and other freight. I remember when the Norfolk and Western lost the Mail contracts they lost several Passenger trains, including the Cavalier.
So yes the trains today are doing a booming business hauling passengers, but not passengers who need to get from point a to b. These passengers are driving to the train for a tourist train ride to point c, then getting back in their cars to drive off to where-ever.
Its not like in densely populated Europe or the east coast where the trains actually perform a service to carry passengers, and are subsidized by the governments to provide that service as a useful means of everyday life for those peoples.
The trains today thankfully are surviving, but its "TOURIST BUSINESS" only. These are "For Fun Trains" not regularly scheduled passenger trains which essentially ended in 1951 on the 4th Division.
As one poster above pointed out, the west is so far flung that connecting rail service being non-existant throughout the region makes passenger train travel a difficult situation at the very least. Even here in the Cincinnati area we only have one train that runs 3 days a week in each direction between Chicago and Washington. Need to go anywhere else and you can forget it!!!
Cheers,
Greg Scholl
PS When I was little I remember the Christmas Mail extras on the Norfolk and Western. There were second sections of the Powhatton Arrow, The Cavalier, and the Pocahontas, and sometimes an extra afternoon mail train. This lasted for 2-3 weeks before Christmas. All steam through Christmas of 1957!!! As Mr Craft mentioned....thanks to the US Mail for the business.